Ridgewood Village
Municipality · Bergen County
269 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Ridgewood Village, reporting a median pensionable salary of $81,005.
Ridgewood Village is a confirmed New Jersey civil service jurisdiction — a municipality in Bergen County that has adopted Title 11A of the New Jersey Statutes to govern how it hires, classifies, and promotes employees.
Bergen County has 50 confirmed civil service jurisdictions in total, including this one.
About municipalities in New Jersey
New Jersey has 564 municipalities, and each one decides for itself whether to operate under Title 11A. A municipality that adopts civil service hires and promotes employees through competitive exams administered by the state; one that hasn't sets its own local hiring rules instead.
Ridgewood Village Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 50 civil service jurisdictions in Bergen County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Ridgewood Village
269 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Ridgewood Village. That is a count of active memberships reported by the employer, not a payroll headcount: anyone not enrolled in one of these funds does not appear in this data at all, and no separate headcount for a New Jersey local employer is published anywhere we can check against.
| Fund | Name | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| PERS | Public Employees' Retirement System | 175 | 65% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 94 | 35% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 48 police officers and 46 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Ridgewood Village actually appoints.
2 of these members hold a second public job in New Jersey: their reported salary across all public employers exceeds what they are paid here. Shared and part-time appointments are common in local government, and the salary figures below count only the portion earned at Ridgewood Village.
Pensionable salary at Ridgewood Village
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Ridgewood Village reports a pensionable salary above $81,005 and half below, across 269 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $53,732 |
| 25th percentile | $64,718 |
| Median | $81,005 |
| 75th percentile | $122,160 |
| 90th percentile | $170,772 |
The range runs from the 10th to the 90th percentile because the extremes are not informative: the lowest reported figures belong to part-time and partial-year members, whose credited salary is a fraction of a full-time equivalent.
Among the 25 civil service jurisdictions in the same county with pension data, that median sits at the 60th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $80,210. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 71st percentile.
These figures are pensionable salary reported to the NJ Division of Pensions and Benefits for the four most recent quarters, not total pay and not take-home pay. Snapshot of March 31, 2026. How we compile this.
How long people stay at Ridgewood Village
The median enrolled member at Ridgewood Village has 10.5 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 4.5 and 19.9 years. 25% have passed twenty years, which matters locally because retirement eligibility and the pension formula both turn on service credit.
| Credited service | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 78 | 29% |
| 5 to 10 years | 55 | 20% |
| 10 to 15 years | 40 | 15% |
| 15 to 20 years | 29 | 11% |
| 20 to 25 years | 34 | 13% |
| 25 years or more | 33 | 12% |
Membership tier records which pension rules a member was hired under, so the mix is a rough picture of how recently a workforce turned over. At Ridgewood Village, 43% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 85 | 32% |
| Tier 2 | 11 | 4% |
| Tier 3 | 57 | 21% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 116 | 43% |
Other public employers in Ridgewood Village
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Ridgewood Village. Each is its own employer for pension purposes, and only some are civil service jurisdictions — school boards, charter schools and parking authorities are ordinary public employers that were never part of Title 11A. Names link only where the body appears in this directory.
| Employer | Enrolled members |
|---|---|
| RIDGEWOOD TWP BD OF ED | 651 |
| RIDGEWOOD VILLAGE (this page) | 269 |
| RIDGEWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY | 14 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Ridgewood Village
In a municipality that operates under Title 11A, the mayor, administrator or governing body still decides which positions exist and who gets appointed to them. What changes is the route in. Most permanent positions have to be filled from a list of candidates who took and passed an open competitive examination.
That flips the usual job hunt around. For a competitive title you announce yourself by filing for the exam when it is posted, not by dropping a resume at the municipal building. Municipal employers also run the widest mix of titles in this directory: police and fire, public works and sanitation, code enforcement and construction inspection, tax collection, clerical support, recreation, and dispatch.
A permanent appointment starts with a working test period. You hold the title, you draw the salary, and you can still be released for unsatisfactory performance without the full removal process. Permanent status, and the job protection that comes with it, begins only once that period is completed satisfactorily.
Temporary and seasonal appointments sit outside the permanent track entirely. Summer recreation staff, short-term project help and coverage for an absent employee are filled without an examination and end when the need does. The work counts as experience when you later apply for a competitive title, but it confers no status of its own.
Civil service employers in Ridgewood Village
Ridgewood Village appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the village government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
One other Ridgewood Village body is listed separately: Ridgewood Library, a public library. It is a distinct employer with its own hiring, so a job there is not a job with the village, and permanent status earned at one does not carry to the other.
- Ridgewood Library, public library
Civil service titles used by New Jersey municipalities
Real classifications that New Jersey municipalities draw on, each linked to its official specification: the definition of the work, the requirements, and any licence the title depends on. A sample of the system rather than a roster or a list of openings.
Civil service coverage across Bergen County
Bergen County holds 50 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 21 municipalities, 20 public libraries, 4 boards of health, 1 board of social services, 1 county government, 1 housing authority, 1 school district, and 1 municipal utilities authority.
21 of the county's 70 municipalities are among them.
Bergen County is a jurisdiction too, though a county's decision does not bind the towns, authorities, libraries or districts inside it.
Also in the directory: North Arlington Borough, North Arlington Library, Oakland Borough, Oakland Library, Park Ridge Borough, Park Ridge Library, Ridgewood Library, Rutherford Borough. See all 50 in Bergen County.
Common questions about Ridgewood Village
Is Ridgewood Village a civil service employer?
Yes. Ridgewood Village appears in the New Jersey Civil Service Commission's listing of local civil service system jurisdictions as of July 2024, which makes it an appointing authority under Title 11A. Permanent appointments to competitive titles there come from eligible lists the Commission certifies, rather than from purely local hiring.
Does civil service status at Ridgewood Village cover the rest of Ridgewood Village?
No. Ridgewood Village has more than one employer in the listing, and each holds its own status, runs its own examinations and keeps its own eligible lists. Seniority and permanent status earned at one do not transfer automatically to another, even inside the same town.
Is there always a written test?
No. New Jersey runs both assembled examinations, where candidates are scheduled to sit a test, and unassembled ones, where a reviewer scores your education and experience against the requirements in the specification and there is no test day at all. The announcement says which kind it is. For an unassembled examination the application itself is the examination, so how fully you describe your experience is the score.
Do veterans get a preference on these lists?
Yes, and in New Jersey it is unusually strong. On an open competitive list, disabled veterans who pass are ranked ahead of all other candidates, and other veterans who pass are ranked ahead of non-veterans, regardless of score. Preference has to be claimed and verified in advance, and it does not carry over to promotional examinations.
How many Ridgewood Village employees are in a State pension system?
269 active memberships are reported through Ridgewood Village, split across 175 in PERS and 94 in PFRS. This counts pension enrolment rather than payroll, so employees who are not in one of these funds are not included.
What is the median pensionable salary at Ridgewood Village?
$81,005, with the middle half of members between $64,718 and $122,160. These figures are pensionable salary reported to the NJ Division of Pensions and Benefits for the four most recent quarters, not total pay and not take-home pay. It excludes overtime and most supplemental pay, and it is before tax, before the member's own pension contribution and before health premiums.
How does pay at Ridgewood Village compare with the rest of Bergen County?
Its median pensionable salary of $81,005 sits at the 60th percentile among the 25 civil service jurisdictions in Bergen County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $80,210. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Ridgewood Village?
The median enrolled member has 10.5 years of credited service, and 25% have passed twenty years. Credited service drives both retirement eligibility and the pension formula, so a long-tenured workforce usually means fewer open competitive appointments in the near term.